Canberra is a designed capital, instead of a city that inherited the capital title. This gave it the opportunity to begin designing it from scratch and with the idea of a capital in mind. There are significant disadvantages too. A city is formed from a small town, and it's success is based on it positioning and economic wealth. A designed from scratch city doesn't have these foundations and therefore has no history or prior population. And a city without people cannot rightly be called a city at all.
There are many ideas on what a capital city requires and I have complied the ones I feel are the most important (but not necessarily the be all and end all).
- Centre of politics
- Commanding position
- Seat of power
- Seat of learning
- Beautiful
- A reflection of the country's culture
And most importantly:
- A utopian (in all aspects; design, social, aesthetics ect...) example of a city, that all other cities show aspire to.
Canberra meets all but three of these criteria. The city is not the seat of power in Australia. It is not the largest economic city, nor does it have valuable resource or provides any utilitarian services for the country. It also is not the seat of learning for the country as the educational system is run by state government. But most importantly Canberra is in no way a utopian city. The main reason behind this is the lack of people and life in the city. Canberra was unable to draw in a significant population. The lack of a booming business sector and entertainment services prevented this from ever changing.
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